Review: KISS Kids #3

2) love the new crop of juvenile comics that have popped up over the recent years showing heroes as their younger selves.

You would think that those two things would make for a great combination for a fan like me. I wish it did. I really do.

This was my first exposure to KISS Kids and unless they make changes it will more than likely be my last. I don’t like being negative, I honestly don’t. Please believe me.

This issue is broken down to four little short tales that would be better served as animated interstitials between commercial breaks on The Cartoon Network than in a comic book.

The art was great. I loved how the characters were drawn. I’ve never heard of Jose Holder before picking this up, but I will be looking for him down the line. His art is reminiscent of cartoons of the late 80’s and early 90’s, when the characters were really developing from almost simple line drawings to having depth. His work literally made me smile because it was just so cute.

I believe the downfall of this book is that they are trying too hard to cram as much material in a few pages as possible without there being an overriding theme. There was nothing there to tie the stories together in order to make one cohesive arc.

Warning: From this point, spoilers will abound….

Calling Dr. Love: We open seeing Lil Demon, Starchild, Catman and Celestial in gym playing dodgeball and Starchild gets hit in the arm and requests to go to the nurse’s office. Throughout the course of the day we see him constantly asking to be sent to the nurse because of one medical malady or another. Later on we see the three remaining kids lamenting the fact that Starchild is once again in the nurse’s office and then discover why he’s constantly feigning illness.

Field Trippin’: What is every kids favourite day in school? That right, gang! If you answered, “Field Trip Day”, then you are correct! We see our lovable little rockers as they are boarding the bus to go to the Museum of History for a field trip. Warned not to touch anything by the chaperones, the boys go explore the exhibits that the museum has to offer. Catman is there and being the feline lover that he is, becomes enthralled with a Saber-Toothed big cat skeleton and through some mystical power after touching it on the nose and wishing he could play with it, it comes to life as does a large dinosaur! Can our heroes save the day?

Of the four stories, this was actually my favourite. The writers could have fleshed this out a bit more and possibly even made a complete issue out of it rather than a few pages. Spilled milk. Can’t cry over it.

Gah! All Night: The kids are home with a baby sitter who gets frightened by a horror movie she’s watching and then gets even more frightened by the boys and what they are doing up stairs.

Got to Choose: The Battle of the Bands is quickly approaching and our pint sized rockers are waiting for Celestial to show up for practice. When Celestial does show, he suggests that they were costumes. They need a certain look in order to be remembered by the audience. The other three protest saying they want known for their talent rather than their appearance on stage.

Bottom Line

I would only recommend this to someone that is a die hard KISS fan and only if he or she is the fan that "HAS" to have everything about their favourite band. Thumb through it and read a bit before blindly buying it.